The Pistons are in the midst of one of the most remarkable turnarounds in NBA history. After winning 14 games last season, they’ve won 42 and counting this year and are well on their way to the 2025 NBA Playoffs.
The Pistons-Timberwolves fight proves Detroit basketball really is back
The NBA is better when the Pistons are fighting (and good)
Photo by David Berding/Getty Images
Detroit has established itself as the team NOBODY wants to mess with, despite being the fourth-youngest team in the entire league. The Minnesota Timberwolves found out in a massive brawl during their game on Sunday where seven people combined from both teams were ejected, including Pistons’ head coach JB Bickerstaff.
Let’s break the tape down and see what happened. So this looks like Wolves’ forward Naz Reid took some offense to how rookie forward Ron Holland’s foul and got in his face, Holland, not being scared by any means, gets right back in his face, as any normal person would. I think Wolves’ guard Donte DiVincenzo escalates the situation by also getting into Holland’s face, and from here the gloves are off. This is real Pistons’ basketball, folks. The game we love is coming back to us.
I love the TV angle of this because you can see the fight spill into the front row courtside, and the cameraman ends up getting caught in the wreckage which creates a hilarious visual of the fight:
Someone go help that poor cameraman!
Here’s a better angle of when everything spilled over, caught by a fan on their phone. As you can see, Holland is sent into the stands and Pistons’ F Isaiah Stewart comes in to help him out, leading to more craziness.
The Wolves ended up winning this game, but the brawl was what everyone wanted to talk about. Bickerstaff was ejected after what he alleges were some not so savory words about his guys was said by Wolves’ assistant Pablo Prigioni (now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time).
Timberwolves’ head coach Chris Finch offered his perspective on the fight as well:
Overall, I think this could’ve been avoided, but with the intensity of this game something like this was always going to happen. Reid kind of blew it out of proportion with the reach in foul but everything from there was bound to blow out of the water.
However, the Pistons are good and won’t back down from a fight, meaning real hoops is back.
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